The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1887-09-30
FREE-rRApe HuMsuo.

FREE-TRADE HUMsUc.
Why America. werking-N1s Get Higher
Wages Than Their English Brothers.
The free traders get very weary when
the fact Is pointed out that the adop-
ton of their pet craze means. for all
working-men. a reduction of the rate
Of wages to the standard prevailing in
the only free trade country in the
world-Great Britain. They attempt
to evade the issue by abusing English
class distinctions and asserting what
no one disputes. viz: that these dis
tinctions are abolished in free Amer
lea. The statement is true, but what
has it to do with the question of wages?
We also wish to place in juxtaposi-
ton these two precious extracts from
the same article:
This is q free country where men are equal
and where equality il everywhere recognized,
except among the snobbish monopolists and
aristocrats who were created by the American
tariff Such persons despise labor and have
nothing to do with it. only as they can utilize II
to assist them in squeezing millions from the
juicy tariff lemon that has been tossed to them
by the Republican party.
The American wage-worker IL as good as the
millionaire employer, and rs a majority Of en-
ployers worked their way up" their sense Of
justice and fairness and honor have never be-
come blunted or scared, and they concede fair
wages.
Those two paragraphs refer to the
same class of people, viz: American
employers. The one calls them ''snob-
bish monopolists and aristocrats."
while the second declares that the
majority of them worked up from the
ranks of employees, through their own
energy. and that their sense of justice
and fairness has never become scared
or blunted. Somehow we can't see
how the two things can be true. We
are inclined, for ourselves, to say that
the second is the more truthful, and to
believe that the first is mere windy
abuse, to catch the ears of the ground
lings. We will saw nothing of the
mental caliber of a man who could be
influenced by such caterwauling.
The attempt to assume that social
conditions regulate the rate of wages
is absurd and ridiculous. They have
no effect upon it. The state of the
case can be summed up in few words:
Working-men in industrial pursuits
get higher wages in the United States
than in England, because the protec-
tive tariff stands like wall to prevent
the introduction of goods made in
what our free trade contemporary adj
mits to be the working slave shops of
Great Britain"
To destroy the protective feature of
the tariff simply means that these
goods will come into direct competi-
ton with American goods. Then. one
of two things must happen: Either
manufacturers of the latter must shut
up their mills and factories. and dis
charge their thousands of work-men,
or the latter must submit to such re-
duction of wages as will put them on
an equality with the aforesaid work
ing slaves"
This is manifestly true. because the
two principal elements of the first cost
of any product are, first the cost of
raw material, and. second, the cost of
the labor to convert it into the finished
product. The item of labor is the one
which causes the higher cost of pro-
duction in this country. because in all
lines of industry Americans get higher
wages than their English brethren.
A comparison is necessary between
the labor condition of the two coun-
tries in considering the tariff question.
because Great Britain is the greatest
manufacturing country in the world.
and the one whose goods. made in
working slave-shops," would come
in direct competition with those made
by honest, better-paid American labor.
"The poor editorial fools" who dare
not face this fact, to quote our free
trade contemporary. "haven't sense
enough to reason. or fairness to admit
that where there is direct competition
between the products of two countries.
the one that produces the cheapest
goods. no matter how illy-paid the
working-me will win, because the
majority of mankind will buy the
lowest-priced goods. irrespective of
where or how they are produced,-7o-
ledO Blade.